World Class Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE JAMIE JOHNSON SERIES

  “You’ll read this and want to get out there and play”

  Steven Gerrard

  “True to the game . . . Dan knows his football”

  Owen Hargreaves

  “An inspiring read for all football fans”

  Gary Lineker

  “If you like football, this book’s for you”

  Frank Lampard

  “Jamie could go all the way”

  Jermain Defoe

  “Pure class – brings the game to life”

  Owen Coyle

  “I love reading about football and it doesn’t get much better than this”

  Joe Hart

  “Pure joy”

  The Times

  “Inspiring”

  Observer

  “Gripping”

  Sunday Express

  “A resounding victory”

  Telegraph

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dan Freedman grew up wanting to be a professional footballer. That didn’t happen. But he went on to become a top football journalist, personally interviewing the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, David Beckham and Sir Alex Ferguson. He uses his passion and knowledge of football to write the hugely popular series of Jamie Johnson football novels. When he is not writing, Dan delivers talks and workshops for schools. And he still plays football whenever he can.

  www.danfreedman.co.uk

  www.jamiejohnson.info

  Follow Dan on Twitter @DanFreedman99

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to:

  Young Phillip – great idea!

  Major for your insights and football feedback.

  Caspian Dennis, Ena McNamara, Lola Cashman, Martin Hitchcock, Xabier de Beristain Humphrey and F – for your brilliant advice all along the way.

  Ms Pluckrose, Ms Clarke and all the superb secret agents at St Ed’s and George Heriot’s School for telling me how it is and how it should be!

  Jonathan Kaye, Prezzo Restaurants and the Nixon clan for your support.

  Hazel Ruscoe – this story is inspired by ideas we had together.

  Owen Coyle for getting behind Jamie and the books.

  Jason Cox for your imagination and perfect illustrations.

  Helen Thomas and the whole team at Scholastic for giving Jamie the freedom to play.

  And to you for reading Jamie’s story…

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise for the Jamie Johnson Series

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Revenge

  Chapter 2: Jamie’s Choice

  Chapter 3: The Ring

  Chapter 4: Jack

  Chapter 5: Autograph

  Chapter 6: That’s Life

  Chapter 7: The Call

  Chapter 8: Making Headlines

  Chapter 9: Five Star

  Chapter 10: Get Out of Jail

  Chapter 11: Take Away

  Chapter 12: The International

  Chapter 13: Good Knight

  Chapter 14: Bottom Line

  Chapter 15: Called Up

  Chapter 16: Magic Word

  Chapter 17: Toilet Humour

  Chapter 18: Sing to Win

  Chapter 19: Volunteer Required

  Chapter 20: On the Net

  Chapter 21: Live For Ever

  Chapter 22: Making the Change

  Chapter 23: Weight of Expectation

  Chapter 24: A Point to Prove

  Chapter 25: Game On

  Chapter 26: BFG

  Chapter 27: Big Story

  Chapter 28: Gone

  Chapter 29: Jack Attack

  Chapter 30: Match Day

  Chapter 31: Bring It!

  Chapter 32: GONE

  Chapter 33: Time

  Chapter 34: “Don’t throw it away”

  Chapter 35: Packing Up

  Chapter 36: History Repeating

  Chapter 37: Status Update

  Chapter 38: Popping Out

  Chapter 39: Dressing Down

  Chapter 40: Match Day

  Chapter 41: Like Watching Brazil

  Chapter 42: World Class

  Chapter 43: Basket Case

  Chapter 44: Headlines

  Chapter 45: Dumped

  Chapter 46: Fart Attack

  Chapter 47: The Professionals

  Chapter 48: Marked Man

  Chapter 49: True Leader

  Chapter 50: Press

  Chapter 51: Next Stage

  Chapter 52: Cruising

  Chapter 53: Destiny Calling

  Chapter 54: Moment of Truth

  Chapter 55: The Final Straight

  Chapter 56: Plane Thinking

  Chapter 57: World Cup Stories

  Epilogue

  Interview with Dan Freedman

  Back Ads

  Copyright

  “We have a saying in football: form is temporary and class is permanent. But world class – genuine world class – well, that’s for ever. Are you world class? We’re about to find out…”

  Sir Brian Robertson – Football Manager

  Jamie instantly killed the pace on the ball, deftly cushioning it on his thigh. As it dropped to the ground, he flicked it forwards and sprinted after it in one easy, fluid movement.

  Using his perfect close control, he passed the ball from foot to foot, nimbly evading the tackles like a speeding slalom skier racing down a mountain.

  With his arms pumping and his legs racing, he galloped down the line. Once he hit turbo speed, Jamie was simply uncatchable.

  He was a superhuman playing against mortals. His skills came from another world.

  A huge grin was plastered across his face as he teased and destroyed the defenders with his speed and poise. He could beat anyone today and he knew it.

  But just at that moment, with Jamie right at the top of his game, displaying the full array of his majestic talent to the watching world, the cruel finger of fate was pointing directly at him.

  Disaster was about to call and yet, with his eyes still firmly fixed on the ball, Jamie had no idea at all…

  Jamie almost couldn’t see through the pain. The torture tore through him like a furious forest fire. Bertorelli had known exactly what he was doing. In an evil scissors motion, he’d wrapped himself around Jamie’s knee, crushing it and twisting it, almost until it broke.

  Now, as Jamie was lifted on to a stretcher and given oxygen to breathe in, the pain in his brain was almost too much to bear.

  All that training … all that practice … all those hours fighting his way back from the last injury. It had all been about this: reaching the World Cup and showing the entire world his skill.

  But now Bertorelli had killed those dreams. He’d slashed them apart in cruel, cold-blooded revenge.

  Jamie covered his eyes as he was carried away from the pitch into the darkness of the tunnel. He couldn’t believe that this was it. That it was all over. It seemed only minutes ago that his World Cup journey had started with those special letters that came to the house.

  Both of them.

  Rewind–

  two and a half weeks before the start of the World Cup

  Jamie picked up the letter and read it again. For the fourth time. No matter how many times he read the words, only two stood out – like flashing lights:

 
WORLD CUP

  Jamie shook his head and carefully placed the letter on his bed. Then he picked up almost the exact same letter from the England squad.

  Spinning around in circles on the kitchen table, Jamie’s ring reflected his mind. Turning this way and that, going around and around but moving nowhere.

  Jamie squeezed his head. He felt as if the answer was close to him. Within touching distance. And yet somehow he couldn’t reach it.

  “I don’t see how there’s any choice to make,” said Jeremy, Jamie’s stepdad, barely looking up from his newspaper. “Play for England. They’re the hosts, they’ve actually got a chance of winning the tournament and you’ll make more money. Simple. And stop spinning that thing, will you! I’m trying to do the crossword.”

  “Well, it’s not simple to me,” said Jamie, purposely ignoring Jeremy and continuing to spin his ring in circles on the kitchen table. Jamie loved that ring. It had been his granddad Mike’s and, before that, it had belonged to Mike’s dad. It had been passed down from generation to generation and, as Mike had not had a son, he’d left it to Jamie in his will. It was the most precious item Jamie owned.

  “What do you reckon Mike would say?” Jamie asked his mum, who was contentedly cradling her cup of tea. “He’d just want me to play for Scotland, wouldn’t he?”

  Jamie’s mum smiled as she sipped her warm cuppa. “Just to see you playing at the World Cup would make Dad the happiest man in the world,” she said reassuringly. “He wouldn’t care who it was for.”

  “But what about that?” Jamie said, pointing to the framed photo on the ledge by the kitchen table. It was his mum’s favourite: a picture of Jamie as a three-year-old, when his hair was still a bright strawberry-blonde colour. He was smiling and, though he was barely able to run, he was kicking a little football, being proudly supported by his granddad Mike, who was standing just behind him, holding him up.

  Jamie liked the photo. He realized that Mike must have been supporting him almost from the day he was born.

  “What about it?” asked his mum, turning to look at the photo. “He always said you’d play at a World Cup, you know. I can’t believe it’s actually coming true!”

  “Yeah,” said Jamie. “And look at what I’m wearing in the photo.”

  It was a Scotland shirt.

  “I can’t explain it,” mumbled Jamie. “My mind’s like … you know how the bathroom mirror looks after you’ve had a shower? All misty and that? That’s how it feels in my brain. It’s all fogged up and I don’t know how to get it clear.

  “Look at this,” he said, handing Jack Marshall his page of scribbled notes. “I’ve written it all down to try to work it out but I still haven’t got a clue what to do.”

  Jamie looked at his best friend reading his notes. As Jack’s big brown eyes scanned the page, he could sense her brilliant brain clicking into action.

  She’d always been way cleverer than him. At school she’d got him out of loads of scrapes with her quick thinking and, if necessary, her tae kwon do skills!

  And now everyone was going to see exactly how clever she was because one of the biggest TV stations had just hired her to be their pitch-side reporter during the World Cup. Jamie was really pleased for her – and he knew she’d be great – but, at the same time, a little part of him felt as if he wanted to keep her all for himself.

  Jack was moving on; making a name for herself in the real world. Sometimes Jamie wondered what that felt like.

  “Easy,” said Jack, giving Jamie her special smile, as she rested his sheet of notes on her bed.

  For a minute Jamie completely zoned out. He was thinking back to all the times he and Jack had spent down at Sunningdale Park, kicking a ball around together. He could still remember the day he beat Jack with a rainbow flick for the first time. He’d trapped the ball behind his ankle and then flicked it up and over his head. It was a wicked, awesome skill but Jack had gone mad at him and made him promise that he’d never do it again! Jamie had agreed and swore that he wouldn’t – but he’d had his fingers crossed behind his back the whole time.

  “…Why don’t you try a trick my dad taught me,” Jack was suggesting. “Take a coin, say one side is England and one side is Scotland and then flick it into the air. Whichever side it lands on, that’s your decision made.”

  “What?” retorted Jamie, flabbergasted at Jack’s suggestion. “So leave the biggest decision of my career down to the toss of the coin? Are you serious? That’s a rubbish idea! There’s no way I’m going to let a coin decide for me.”

  “Ah, but that’s the clever bit,” grinned Jack, her perfect white teeth shining back at Jamie. “The coin isn’t there to make the decision for you. It’s there to show you how you feel. If it lands heads and it’s England … and you feel happy, then it’s job done. You know you wanted to play for England all along. But if your heart sinks, then you know it’s Scotland that you really want to play for, so you choose them. It’s just a way of showing you how you actually feel.”

  “Oh, right, I see,” said Jamie, taking his scribbled list back from Jack. “Yeah, that’s not bad. Yeah, I quite like that.”

  As he looked again at his list, he realized how many more reasons there were to play for England rather than Scotland. And then his eyes settled on the last item he’d written: “Scotland’s in my soul”.

  If he was honest, Jamie had no idea what that actually meant and yet somehow, at the same time, he had a suspicion that it meant everything.

  It was a game of two on two. One of the kids burst through and hammered a shot at the tiny goal.

  The ball missed and went flying at the short, stocky teenager who was walking towards them.

  “Watch out, mate!” the other players shouted, panicking. The speeding ball was heading straight for the guy’s face.

  Instinctively, the figure, who was wearing a baseball cap, took two steps back and controlled the ball on his chest. Then he kneed the ball up into the air before volleying it past all four players and into the other mini goal behind them.

  The young street footballers, all four of them, stood open-mouthed in wonder. For a second, they were completely noiseless – silenced by the brilliance. They had witnessed something quite extraordinary.

  They stared in awe as the mysterious figure walked past them and into the Hawkstone United training ground complex. And that was when they realized.

  “Oh my God!” they shouted in astonishment. “It’s him! Jamie Johnson! Jamie, wait! Can we have your autograph, please?”

  “Sure,” said Jamie Johnson, Hawkstone United’s star player, taking off his baseball cap to reveal his shortly cropped new haircut and a big, broad smile. Being around kids who liked football always reminded Jamie of how lucky he was. Ten years ago, five years even, he would have been doing exactly what they were doing. Hanging around outside the training ground, kicking a ball around, just on the off chance that they might see a player.

  “Can I shake your hand, please?” begged one of the kids. “Oh my days! I’m never washing this hand again – I swear it! My dad says you’re the best player he’s ever seen!”

  “Which school did you go to?” another of the boys shouted. “Was it Kingfield or The Grove? And do you know Robbie Simmonds? He says he’s your best mate.”

  It was like doing the quickest interview of all time!

  “I went to both schools,” Jamie smiled, while contending with the flurry of scraps of paper and notepads that were being shoved in front of his face to sign. More and more kids were appearing from nowhere to join the throng. “And yeah, I know Robbie. I went to school with his older brother, Dillon. But don’t believe everything he tells you – Robbie’s big-time cheeky, he is!”

  “So who are you going to play for at the World Cup, then? It’s England, isn’t it?”

  “Not decided yet,” said Jamie, waving to the kids as he headed on into the Ha
wkstone United training complex. “That’s what I’m here to talk about.”

  “Hey, before you go, can you sign my Hawkstone top, please?” asked a boy wearing a shirt with JOHNSON on the back.

  “Sure,” said Jamie, jogging back.

  He took the boy’s marker pen and carefully scrawled the new signature that he had been working on.

  “You want my advice?” said Archie.

  “I need your advice,” replied Jamie.

  Archie Fairclough’s official title at Hawkstone was Assistant Manager, but he was so much more than that to Jamie. Mentor, motivator … doctor even, seeing that he’d been the one to help Jamie back to fitness after his horrific knee injury a couple of years ago. With his barrel chest and his dry sense of humour, Archie had always believed in Jamie – no matter what. And since Mike had died, that meant more than ever.

  “Write down a list,” suggested Archie. “Put down all the pros and cons—”

  “Done that,” said Jamie.

  “OK, then,” smiled Archie. “Here’s one for you. You get a coin, tell yourself that whichever side it lands on—”

  “Done that too,” Jamie blurted out. “Whichever side it landed on it just felt like I made the wrong choice! Didn’t help at all.”

  “Right,” said Archie, subconsciously feeling the white tufts of his beard that Jamie always thought looked like the beginnings of a real Father Christmas look. “I see the problem. You feel a loyalty to both countries.”

  “Exactly,” said Jamie. “I just wish I could play for both!”

  “You want to know what I really think, Jamie?” said Archie.

  Jamie nodded.

  “I don’t think it matters which you pick. There are always going to be positives and negatives to every choice. That’s life. Get used to it. But I do know one thing for sure: you’d better pick one soon, because time is running out for you – fast.”

  Jamie had ten minutes before the press conference began. A good time to catch up on missed calls and voicemails. He’d missed a call from a number he hadn’t recognized last night.